February 8, 2017

Papen asks committee to table bill creating early ed endowment

The Senate Education Committee has unanimously tabled a bill that would have established a new endowment for early childhood programs in the state using revenues from federal mineral rights leases on public lands — assuming Congress approved a proposal by State Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn to share the funding.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, asked the committee to table the measure Wednesday, saying, “It is clear to me now … that the bill suffers from problems in its construction.”

In conversations with legislators, educators, Dunn and others, she said, she discovered “this entire approach has little support from the public.”

Opponents of Senate Bill 182, including the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, said one of its faults is that it assumes the federal government would agree to share proceeds with the state from leasing 6.6 million acres of mineral rights on private land. And even if that happened, critics said, it would take a least a decade for the endowment to produce a revenue stream.

After citing a series of grim statistics regarding child well-being in New Mexico, Papen asked the committee to help her find “better ways to fund these critical priorities for children.”

Advocates of early childhood education argue that preschool programs help prepare students for kindergarten, improve reading scores and graduation rates, and lower the rates of juvenile crime and incarceration.

Papen’s bill was one of several introduced this session to fund an expansion of such programs.

Sen. Michael Padilla and Reps. Antonio “Moe” Maestas and Javier Martinez, all Albuquerque Democrats, are sponsoring similar resolutions that would let voters decide whether to pull more investment revenues from the state’s Land Grant Permanent Fund for these efforts. Republicans, including Gov. Susana Martinez, oppose this approach. Though, if a measure passed through both houses of the Legislature, Martinez would be unable to veto it because it involves a constitutional amendment.

Ben Shelton, director of Conservation Voters New Mexico,thanked Papen in a statement issued after Wednesday’s hearing. The organization is “so grateful that she listened to CVNM members and supporters and the public who voiced their opposition to this method of funding,” the statement said.

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The state House of Representatives approved a $7 billion budget on Thursday, sending to the Senate a plan for the next fiscal year that would provide nearly half a billion dollars in additional funds for public schools but which Republicans say amounts to an outsize increase in government spending. House Bill 2 would mark an 11 percent bump in New Mexico's budget, drawing on a surplus fueled by an oil and gas boom.

The state Senate narrowly approved a bill Thursday that would require just about anyone buying a firearm to undergo a background check. This legislation has been a priority for gun control advocates, but all 16 Republicans and four Democrats in the Senate said it would not prevent the sort of mass shootings that have spurred calls for such laws.

A handful of Democrats joined with Republicans at the Legislature on Friday to quash a bill that would have allowed the state to charge higher royalty rates on some oil and gas production. The first committee hearing for House Bill 398 turned into a showdown between New Mexico's influential oil industry and a newly elected Democratic land commissioner who came to office pledging to collect a greater share of revenue from oil produced on the millions of acres her office controls.

Inside the New Mexico State Land Office, current Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn sits at a dark wood desk ringed with a painting of the Rio Grande Gorge, a saddle, and a pair of leather chaps pinned on the wall, homages to a lifetime spent on cattle ranches. But it’s the decor outside that tends to draw more attention: Dunn installed a model pump jack in front of the State Land Office building on Old Santa Fe Trail.

Some vetoes by Gov. Susana Martinez are raising eyebrows among legislators and others—and at least one partial veto may be challenged in court. Wednesday was the final day for Martinez to decide whether or not to sign bills from this year’s legislative session.

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The state House of Representatives approved a $7 billion budget on Thursday, sending to the Senate a plan for the next fiscal year that would provide nearly half a billion dollars in additional funds for public schools but which Republicans say amounts to an outsize increase in government spending.